How To Know The Destination URL Behind A Shortened Link
In this article, you will know where shortened URLs point to.
You have probably come across shortened links, be it on Social media or Websites. Sometimes you might be curious to know what is behind the shortened links and where do they lead to. Then you are in the right place to know what is behind a shortened link.
URL shorteners are web tools that reduce the length of your URL (Uniform Resource Locator). The reason behind this is to minimize the web page address into something that’s easy to remember and track.
There are many URL shorteners such as Bit.ly, Short.io, and TinyURL. These URL shortening services you choose will maintain the connection between the new link and the original URL. This means anyone who clicks on your new link will be redirected to the original page.
But there’s a negative side to short URLs. The reason is that you’ve no idea where they’re going. once you click on a shortened URL, you might end up in a phishing site or a malicious download.
Bitly
If you find yourself with a Bitly link and you don’t know where it goes, then just copy the shortened URL and paste it on your browser and add a “+” at the end of the URL, like this:
You will be taken to Bitly website where it will display the long URL.
As you can see now the destination URL has been revealed. Then click on “COPY”, which gives you the short URL without the “+” sign. Paste into your browser and off you go.
Use An Online Service
You can also use an online service to get the details of a shortened URL. There are so many choices for URL expanders that it can be difficult to know which one to use. Such as checkshorturl, urlexpander, getlinkinfo etc. For the purpose of this tutorial, let’s use checkshorturl.
Our short URL is https://tinyurl.com/vfxp52np
Go to checkshorturl.com and paste the short URL
Click on Expand button to get the details of the short URL.
Here we have the long URL as well as the short URL.
Lastly, whenever in doubt about a particular link don’t click on it. Nothing is worth risking for viruses or having your account details hacked by someone. By following these tips, it will help show you where a shortened link is trying to take you.
[Read Also: How to bypass Ad-links]
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